Episode 104: Broken Wings (Camilla)

She had calmed down, mostly. She’d been up here for hours. At first she’d screamed into her pillow. Then she’d almost vomited, except she had nowhere to vomit into that wouldn’t be discovered. She didn’t want Ionia to have the satisfaction, and she knew that if she was sick Ionia would make Tara clean it up, because Ionia loved animosity.

She’d calmed herself, steadied her stomach, sent a frenzy of air towards Spence, wherever he was, and now she sat in a chair and looked out the window.

The fact that she hadn’t been down for supper and no one had come to check on her told her a lot: It meant Ionia was confident she couldn’t escape.

There wasn’t any point in trying. She was going to die here. Tarragon would probably be the one to kill her, while Ionia leered at her and kidnapped other women to nurse her babies.

There was not a word for the helpless outrage she felt, but she knew one thing for certain: Her mom never gave up, and neither would she.

The door creaked open, spilling light into the dark hallway beyond. Tarragon stood there, hesitant even though it was his bedroom.

After a second, which he probably spent trying to decide if she was going to attack him, he edged into the room and clicked the door shut behind him. “May I have a word with you, Camilla?”

“Sure,” she said, flat-toned.

This wasn’t the way to survive. She needed to be more, more into him, more happy, more involved in the house. If she could find a way to make herself matter to any of them, maybe it would give her a chance.

“Is there anything I can say to help you…what you saw…” he trailed off, then cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t have done it, in any other circumstances.”

“I know,” she said. “Or I hope, anyway. But you did it.”

Ugh. She obviously had a deathwish. Good job, Camilla, do your best to make the only person who is even a little on your side hate you.

“While actions speak louder than words, my arms are bound and I fear my word is of too little value,” he told her. He sat on the bed.

He was as bad as her mom – all formal and rigid because he was anxious. It made sense – her mom was his dad’s cousin, and her mom always joked that it ran in the family; his uncle, Drey, was apparently the worst culprit.

“Would you like to see something that may interest you?” he asked her.

No. “Sure,” she said. She tried to make her voice sound more interested and ended up sounding like she might gag on her own voice. She sat. Acting was so not her thing.

He pulled his pant leg up. 

He had nice legs. Like most of the past couple of days, she tried not to focus on the stuff she liked about him, but it kept coming back to her. She liked him.

Right up until he murdered his son.

She reminded herself that she didn’t know all the facts. She could make some pretty good guesses about what would have happened if he had refused, like him and Annatto both being killed, but she didn’t actually know. She shouldn’t judge him.

She couldn’t not.

He pointed to his leg, where there was a set of tattooed blue stars. Here and there with the blue ones were some blackish grey ones that looked like they’d been burned off.

“Stars,” he explained. “For you and our children.”

Did he think a tattoo was somehow going to make her feel loved? He better not be saying he’d preemptively memorialized her with a generic star tattoo, so she shouldn’t feel bad about dying.

“That interests me?” she snapped.

She needed to get control. Pissing him off wasn’t going to help anyone.

“There are five,” he said. He pressed his finger against each one, labeling them as hers. “I’d like to see to it that you are able to raise them yourself.”

As the daughter of the family obstetrician, she had a pretty good idea about this stuff. She lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Tarragon wouldn’t have to kill her. This far from technology, without her dad there to help her, her body would fail on its own. Even with the salamander traits she’d gotten from Tarragon.

“Five?” she complained. She knew why. Her dad wasn’t just a doctor, he was a wiccan doctor. Ionia was plotting a strong set of heirs. “Two is higher risk, three is huge. Five?”

Five little tiny helpless people, growing inside her, with no idea that every second brought them closer to a life of misery in Ionia’s control.

She hated that woman. She hated all of them here, sometimes Tarragon most of all because he knew better. But he was biding his time, to protect his other kids.

Sometimes, she hated him. Other times, she understood. He was struggling, he was a victim just as much as she was, he had other people to protect.

He ran his hand down her body. She didn’t want it to be comforting, but it was. “I will care for you,” he promised, “in every way you allow.”

Which was exactly why she couldn’t push him away now. He would respect that distance, and she needed him to want her alive.

“I’m not running away. I was just looking outside.” She was so sick of the walls of this house, she couldn’t even tell him. Or imagine how long he’d been here, how sick of them he probably was.

“I wouldn’t insult your intelligence by reminding you again; I know you’re scared.” He moved his hand up to her hair, with more soothing massage. “Annatto is Salamander, he will heal without intervention.”

It didn’t make what he did any less wrong. “I know,” she murmured. She’d grown up surrounded by invincible Dragon heirs, she knew what they were capable of.

“Would you like to watch a movie?” he offered. He sat up, distancing them more.

She sat up too, and nodded her head. “A movie is a good idea.”

Anything but sleeping with him. She had to, she knew that. Make herself invaluable, that was the trick. But she wasn’t there yet. “Something animated?” she suggested. “For your cousin?”

“Would you like me to invite her up?” he asked.

No. She needed Ionia to see her accepting this life, too. 

“You can,” she said carefully. If Tarragon wanted to watch up here, she didn’t want to force him to go downstairs. There would be other chances for Ionia to see her settling in. “Or we can watch downstairs.”

He sighed. She could feel his frustration, but all he said was, “Downstairs is fine.”

He offered his hand to her. She took it. It wasn’t much, but it was a step toward good things again. Or at least toward pretending good things, which was almost the same.

“I will free you,” he whispered. It was an impossible lie, but she needed to hear it and let herself believe it might be true.

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